Missouri Man Gets Life for Kidnapping Boys

Oct 08, 03:43 PM

Current Headlines: A Missouri man was sentenced to life in prison Monday in connection with the kidnapping and sexual assault of two boys.

Michael Devlin, 41, of Kirkwood, a former pizza parlor manager, accepted a plea agreement to avoid facing trial for the Jan. 8 kidnapping of William Ben Ownby from Beaufort, Mo., the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

Devlin confessed to forcing the boy into his truck at gunpoint and taking him to his home in Kirkwood where police four days later found Ben and Shawn Hornbeck, who had been missing from his hometown of Richwoods, Mo., since Oct. 6, 2002, the Post-Dispatch reported.

The plea agreements reached Monday meant neither of the boys would have to testify in court. Before the plea agreements, Devlin faced 86 criminal counts in Franklin, Washington and St. Louis counties, and in U.S. District Court in St. Louis, the Post-Dispatch reported.